


Even the clearest water, if deep enough, can drown

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Frenemies, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, soulbond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:30:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://stevebucky-fest.dreamwidth.org/307.html?thread=53299#cmt53299">this</a> prompt at the Steve/Bucky Prompt Fest, in which Bucky is unwillingly soul-bonded to Tony Stark, who is a less than sympathetic bondmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even the clearest water, if deep enough, can drown

**Author's Note:**

> +Warnings for Tony Stark being a dick. And for Bucky being a bit of a dick, too.  
> +Anon, I hope this works for you.  
> +I've been kind of slow on the writing front lately so it's been a relief to get this one out. Title from RS Thomas' _No Truce with the Furies_.

“It’s highly irregular.”

“ _You’re_ highly irregular, buddy.” Bucky’s holding an icepack to the back of his head and Steve is hovering, the way he does, anxious and restless. 

“I’m also the only person who can undo this,” says Stephen Strange. 

“I dunno if it needs undoing right now,” says Bucky, glancing at Stark, who’s still unconscious. “I kinda like the peace and quiet.”

.

So, mostly, Bucky thinks the magic is harmless. He only knows it’s magic because he was zapped with bright blue light and, seriously, he’s sick to the back teeth of blue glow-y things. He thinks that the magic is just a headache and a constant buzzing behind his eyeballs.

Of course, then Stark wakes up again and it all goes to shit.

.

Stark peers at him. “No, seriously, how do you _function_?”

Bucky stares back. He knows his mouth has dropped open unbecomingly. 

“Your mind is, like, totally blank right now. How are you still breathing?” Stark prods at Bucky’s right shoulder and winces. Good, he felt that. 

Bucky reaches out and grabs Stark’s left wrist and squeezes. Oh, this is. This is brilliant. Bucky can’t feel that. It’s nothing more than pressure; the ghost of fingers encircling his wrist. 

“You wanna show a little respect, pal?” asks Bucky. Stark is sweating. 

“You wanna learn how to compartmentalize, _Sergeant_?”

Bucky drops Stark’s hand like it burns (like Bucky even knows what burning feels like). “What does _that_ mean?”

Stark looks meaningfully in Steve’s direction and looks back at Bucky. His grin is shark-like. “Not that I blame you, or anything, but I think Rogers probably goes for something less dumb brute.”

Bucky swallows and Stark looks defiant and pleased. Bucky jumps when someone touches his elbow - it’s Steve, thank fuck and Bucky doesn’t care if Stark feels the overwhelming rush of gratitude. 

“Wanna go home, Buck? Dr Strange says it’s going to take a little while to, uh, reverse-engineer this thing and Dr Banner says that he and Dr Morse have run all the tests they need to, for now.”

.

“I think Tony’s having a tough time.”

The problem with Ms Potts is that she’s way too good for Stark but she cares. She’s not stupid, either. She knows that talking to Bucky about Stark is going to get straight back to Stark, whether Bucky tries to hide it or not. 

They’ve gotten good at sending each other direct and coherent thoughts except Stark sometimes does it in the middle of the night when Bucky’s asleep. It’s a brutal _shut up, Barnes_ and _see a goddamned therapist_ and _two words for you, pal: drunken stupor. Try it_. 

Bucky’s trying to be polite to Ms Potts, though. She doesn’t deserve anymore shit on her plate (she doesn’t deserve to know that when Stark was in bed with her last night, Bucky knew exactly how it felt). “I guess it’s tough being, uh, stuck with a guy with more issues than the National Geographic.”

Ms Potts laughs. “That sounds like something Tony would say.” Her smile slips. “Oh god, did he _say_ that to you?”

.

They get as far as Bedford Avenue before the pain in Bucky’s head is too much to bear. 

.

Bucky stands up shakily in the rubble. He feels like he’s underwater and he grins a little when he hears a ghost of a memory of Namor telling him he only wishes he could be so lucky. 

He pulls Stark to his feet. Stark was the nearest to him. 

“You always got voices in your head, Barnes?” asks Stark, rubbing his head. 

“If this is some joke about comms, I ain’t in the mood, pal.” 

.

But Steve. Steve is amazing. He goes out to Brooklyn to get their things and they move into a floor of the Mansion. It’s not like home, or anything, but Steve brought back a couple of his paintings and some photographs to make it look a little less like some corporate apartment. 

Bucky’s killed a lot of rich men in corporate apartments, who thought they could betray Department X and the Motherland.

Stark shudders. “You are a scary fucker, you know that?”

Bucky smiles slowly 

Stark leaves and Steve slumps down onto the couch. His shoulders are a little tense and Bucky sits down next to him.

“What’s up, Steve?”

“I just - I’m really sorry. I know Stark can be a bit much, sometimes, and that’s when he’s not in your head.”

“It’s okay, pal, honestly.” Bucky’s still optimistic that the good doctors of magic and science can fix this. He drapes his arm around Steve’s shoulders and that makes Steve relax. Bucky tries not to think about how it makes him feel because it’ll make Stark feel too and he doesn’t want to share it.

.

He jerks off in the shower, careful to keep his fantasies vague; acres of warm skin and hot breath. It’s frustrating and he doesn’t come. 

.

“Please, Natashen’ka.”

Natasha looks at him with an expression of scepticism. “You mean it.”

Bucky means it. He means to spar with Natasha until one or both of them are unconscious. 

He wakes up in a bed in Medical and Steve is standing over him, looking bewildered and angry in equal measure. 

“Bucky,” he says. “Oh, Bucky.”

In Bucky’s defence, he didn’t really think that Stark would feel it, too. Stark didn’t lose consciousness but, apparently, he’s a little worse for the wear.

.

Stark wakes him up from a dream and Bucky can’t bring himself to be grateful. He was falling and now he’s awake and he never hit the ground and he will never hit the ground. He’s lost and he will always be lost and Stark never sees the value of impact. He feels restless and a little sick. 

He crawls into Steve’s bed. Steve holds up the covers and Bucky holds on for dear life, the way he never could before. 

He has another nightmare but he forces himself awake before Stark can interrupt and Steve’s there, murmuring in his ear, and stroking his back, even though Bucky’s sweating right through his t-shirt. 

“You’re here,” Steve whispers. “You’re safe.”

Bucky believes it and he’s too tired to hide it. He’s too wrung out to do anything but plaster himself against Steve and he doesn’t hear the way Steve’s breath stutters. 

.

“If you want to, you know, it’d be okay,” says Stark. 

They’re sitting in Medical, waiting while Banner and Morse run through more tests.

“I’m gonna need some actual words in there, Stark,” says Buck. 

“If you want to hit that. Y’know. I’ll wear earphones or something.”

“I gotta say, all I wanna hit right now is your face.”

“Kinky but yeah. No. I mean, everyone’s favourite super-soldier. Unless you’re happy just cuddling. Is it a nineteen-thirties thing? Oh god, are you courting him? Is that what it is?”

Punching Stark in the back of the head is worth the headache.

.

“You want to know why, Stark?” asks Bucky softly. “You wanna know why I’m so fucking _simple_?”

“I figured it was all the punishment beatings in the name of the Motherland but, okay, hit me.”

“Because it’s far, far easier to kill someone when there’s nothing else in your head. It’s far easier to pull the goddamned trigger or cut the goddamned brakes, you get it?”

Stark goes pale and Bucky thinks maybe he gets it. Screams get lost in the void.

.

Bucky walks in on Steve in the bath. He loses his breath and Stark’s consciousness flickers in the back of his brain. Bucky closes the door. 

He walks towards the bath and he’s shedding clothes and he’s taking deep breaths because it’s better to be blank like a kill. 

Steve’s eyes are wide and frightened and it’s too like a kill for Bucky’s comfort but then he stoops down and kisses Steve’s damp lips and Steve sighs and whispers _yes_ and his arms curl around Bucky’s neck. 

They’re laughing when Steve pulls Bucky into the bathtub with him. 

“I feel like now’s a bad time,” whispers Steve. He kisses Bucky’s temple. “If you’re not all alone in there.”

“Buddy, you’n I have never had a good time,” says Bucky and he kisses Steve again.

Ten seconds later, Iron Man has blasted the door open and Bucky gets it.

He thought Bucky was blank like a kill, too. Blank like murder. Blank like dead eyes and blood on a windscreen. 

_Empty doesn’t mean stupid, Stark_ , he thinks, viciously. 

.

Stark never hits the bottom in his nightmares. Bucky learns that on the rare occasions Stark sleeps. Even when he dreams, he finds a way to dodge the inevitable. 

“Invulnerability isn’t a good look on you, Stark,” Bucky says. “The bigger they are -”

“-is this about my ego?”

.

The first time Steve kisses him is the morning after the accident. Bucky’s sitting on the couch in their temporary apartment which is, he knows, beautiful. It’s a bit abstract, to be up so high and surrounded by so much steel and glass and sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he can hear the rock-rocking of the wheels of a train. 

When he opens his eyes, Steve is sitting right in front of him, looking at him solemnly. “We’ll fix this,” he says.

His phone rings and it’s Stark and it’s all stereo, pounding in Bucky’s head. He’s inviting Steve to some gallery opening and Bucky swallows. 

_I’d say bring the one-armed man but I don’t think it’d be his style._

Bucky tries to offer a smile. He knows that Steve’s excited to go. His fascination with modern art is something Bucky’ll never understand. When Steve hangs up, he touches Bucky’s cheek lightly. 

“Maybe it’ll be good for you to take a break or whatever? The gallery’s just a few blocks away so the distance shouldn’t hurt you or Tony-?”

“You’re going with Stark,” Bucky says flatly. It’s not jealousy. (It is jealousy.) 

Steve leans in and touches his lips to Bucky’s mouth. He’s never done that before. “It’ll be like you’re there ‘cept you don’t have to listen to me going on about the paintings. Best of both worlds.”

Bucky guesses it’s the best of both worlds because his lips are tingling. He tries to ignore the tabloid headlines the next day, about Tony Stark and his best friend. _Soulmates?_ asks the Daily Mail. 

Bucky vomits in the toilet and he doesn’t know if it’s his disgust (now that he knows what soulmates are) or Stark’s hangover. 

.

He finds an unlikely ally in James Rhodes except, of course, Rhodey is the likeliest ally. 

“He’s not a bad guy,” says Rhodey. 

Stark and Steve are at some PR event which is all part of SHIELD’s attempt to make nice with the local government. 

“I know,” says Bucky. Because he does know it. Stark’s self-absorbed and he can be cruel and he has no idea how _fucking_ lucky he is and, _god_ , Bucky hopes Stark’s picking up some of this while he hobnobs with the great and the good of New York. “He’s a pain in the ass, though.”

“Can’t argue with that. If he’s making things difficult, let me know, okay?”

.

The thing is Bucky is self-absorbed and he can be cruel and he has no idea-

.

He crawls into Steve’s bed. Maybe it’ll stop the nightmares before they begin. Steve is so warm and Bucky ends up kicking off his boxers and pushing aside the sheets. His leg is hooked over Steve’s hip and his chest is pressed against the exquisite line of Steve’s back. 

He presses his lips to the nape of Steve’s neck and Steve sighs awake. Bucky’s hand curls around Steve’s cock and he rubs against the small of Steve’s back. He bites down on the flesh of Steve’s shoulder and Steve whines and he comes in Bucky’s hand, sooner than Bucky would have guessed, but maybe Steve wants this too. 

Bucky comes over Steve’s back and he doesn’t care that it’s sticky when he presses against Steve again, murmuring over and over that it was so good, Steve is so good.

He can almost ignore the angry flicker in the back of his head. 

.

They decide that proximity will help. Bucky hates them. He and Stark are confined to medical after a mission went so badly wrong that they both blacked out. They’re so different that they cancel each other out. They’re so alike that neither gives an inch. 

“What do we do? Poker won’t work ‘cause you can’t bluff for shit.”

“Truth or dare?” asks Bucky and he’s startled when Stark laughs and it feels rich and warm and deeply amused.

.

The next morning, they untangle themselves, and Steve is blushing. Bucky reaches up to touch his cheek and Steve flinches away.

“Buddy?” asks Bucky, frowning with concern. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know what last night was,” says Steve, and his voice is soft. “I mean. I know you and Tony are at each other’s throats and -”

Bucky stares at him. “Hold on just a hot second here, Steve. I counted two people in bed last night and that was you’n me. ‘s all I care about.” He swallows. He can be brave. “‘s all I ever cared about.”

It’s the right thing to say. It helps that it’s the honest thing to say, too.

Later, when they all descend on Tony’s huge penthouse for some kind of team-building exercise that involves the internet and a whiteboard to ascertain who the most popular Avenger of the week is, Tony grins at Bucky and raises his hand for a high-five. 

Bucky doesn’t return it but he hooks his fingers in one of Steve’s beltloops instead. He hides his face against Steve’s neck and whispers, “just you’n me, I promise.”

.

“So, you and Cap, you never-?”

“Not till last week. Guess I always wanted to, though.” There’s no point lying to Stark because if Bucky tries to hide anything from him, Stark’ll worry at it like a scab and everything Bucky knows’ll gush out. He doesn’t want Stark to have that kind of power. He tilts his chin. He’ll brazen this one out. He huffs out a laugh. “I can’t wait to have you out of my head, Stark-”

“Feeling’s mutual, Sergeant. My IQ can’t take the hit- _ouch_.”

.

It goes as it came, with a swirl of blue light and ice sweeping through his pores. He closes his eyes and there’s silence; blissful silence. 

“Hey, Sarge?”

“Stark.”

“What number’m I thinking of?”

“Fuck you.”

“Shit, he got it right. Are you sure you fixed us, Strange - _ouch_.”

.

He crawls into Steve’s bed. Maybe it’ll stop the nightmares before they begin. Steve is so warm and Bucky ends up kicking off his boxers and pushing aside the sheets. His leg is hooked over Steve’s hip and his chest is pressed against the exquisite line of Steve’s back. 

He presses his lips to the nape of Steve’s neck and Steve sighs awake. Bucky’s hand curls around Steve’s cock and he rubs against the small of Steve’s back. He bites down on the flesh of Steve’s shoulder and Steve whines and he comes in Bucky’s hand, still sooner than Bucky would have guessed, but he knows that Steve wants this too. 

Bucky comes over Steve’s back and he doesn’t care that it’s sticky when he presses against Steve again, murmuring over and over that it was so good, Steve is so good.

He closes his eyes and relishes the silence.


End file.
